But Do They Have Sex? Dunn, Katherine. (1983/2002). Geek Love. New York: Vintage (348 pp). You have to give this novel credit for sheer originality. The main characters are a U.S. family of performers in a traveling carnival, in the … Continue reading
Lots of Nothing, Nicely Packaged Offill, Jenny (2014). Dept. of Speculation. New York: Vintage (177 pp.) The first 100 pages are almost entirely devoid of content, making this a 77 page “novel.” What chutzpah and what a great marketing job … Continue reading
Introduction by Bill: Cathy and I met at the Iowa Summer Writers’ Workshop in 2013. Everyone in the seminar read each others’ novel manuscripts and provided feedback, and we cheered each other on. Recently I learned that Cathy published her book … Continue reading
Literary agents may not be aware of this trend yet. Androids (human-like robots), are everywhere. Recent android movies include AI, I Robot, Ex Machina, Age of Ultron, Chappie, and let’s not forget the whole Terminator series, topped up with … Continue reading
Cold Case and True Crime I’ll be congealing out of writerly fog for the next Arizona Mystery Writers’ meeting in three weeks. We’ll have a police crime scene investigator tell us about a cold case he recently solved. In 1987 … Continue reading
“The first draft of anything is shit.” – Ernest Hemingway When I complete a first draft, I know I have created something out of nothing, no trivial achievement. I never throw first drafts away. I’m generally not too worried about … Continue reading
Deadpan Originality Portis, Charles (1999). The Dog of the South. New York: The Overlook Press (256 pp). I enjoyed the utter originality of Portis’ sentences. How does anybody spin out such interesting details that do not have the stink of … Continue reading
A Wisp of a Tale Doerr, Anthony (2014). All the Light We Cannot See. New York: Scribner (530 pp). This novel is is composed of dozens upon dozens of short, one-to-five-page chapters of very digestible, easy to absorb, pleasantly written … Continue reading
A book without readers still has value. The process of writing it was a journey. New vistas were opened, discoveries made, surprises encountered, lessons learned. It’s better if the book has readers, though. Long ago I decided to focus on … Continue reading
I wrote a story, something I haven’t done in a year. It’s for a contest associated with a conference I’ll attend this summer. Conference attendees don’t have to pay an entry fee so there’s nothing to lose. My story is … Continue reading